Israel

Israelis in the Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt and Lebanon. It is slightly smaller in size than the state of New Jersey. There are over 6 million people living in the State of Israel. Israel declared its independence on the 14th of May 1948. Israelis and Jewish people all over the world celebrate with pride the State of Israel’s independence.

Israel is not a wet country (the Jordan is its only main river), and only the north sustains agriculture. The temperature is usually hot and dry in southern and eastern desert areas. The country’s main body of water, the Dead Sea, is incredibly salty, as well as being the lowest place on the planet. It’s flanked by the Judean Desert, which further south becomes the Negev.

Israel’s natural resources include timber, potash, copper ore, natural gas, phosphate rock, magnesium bromide, clays and sand. There are 242 Israeli settlements and civilian land use sites in the West Bank,
42 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 25 in the Gaza Strip, and 29 in East Jerusalem. The Sea of Galilee is an important freshwater source. Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its capital in 1950, but the US, like nearly all other countries, maintains its Embassy in Tel Aviv. There are 6 districts in Israel, which include; Central, Haifa, Jerusalem, Northern, Southern and Tel Aviv.

Israel has a technologically advanced market economy with substantial government participation. It depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years.

The Flag of Israel is based on the design of the tallit, the prayer shawl worn by Jewish men (and by some women in Reform and Conservative congregations) during certain services. The tallit is worn during all morning services. In addition, it is worn on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The tallit is also worn when reading the Torah during Shabbat (Sabbath) afternoon services and by the person leading evening services. (Jews pray three times a day: the morning service is called shacharit; the afternoon service is called minchah; and the evening service is called ma’ariv or aravit.) There are two basic traditions regarding who wears the tallit. According to one tradition, any Jewish adult should wear the tallit (at the appropriate times). A Jewish adult is one who is thirteen years of age and older (a Bar Mitzvah, or “Son of the Commandments.”) According to another tradition, only married Jews wear the tallit. In addition to the exterior tallit, there is also a tallit katan (“small tallit”), which pious Jews wear all day under their clothes.

Because the tallit is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Jewish people, it was chosen to be the
basis of the flag. (Indeed, in coming up with a design for the flag, the early Zionists came to the realization that the Jewish People had had a flag all along - the tallit - and there was thus no need to design a flag from scratch.) In the center of the flag is the Magen David, or “Shield of [King] David,” better known in English as the “Star of David” or “Jewish Star,” another recognizable Jewish symbol.